


Blade of Heart, Heart of Blade

by Orlha



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Basically canon Naruto with some realism in it, Character Development, Developing Relationship, Epic Friendship, Female Friendship, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Hatake Kakashi is a Good Teacher, Kenjutsu Sakura, Male-Female Friendship, Naruto becomes badass in a realistic way, Naruto realising he needs more than kicking ass as a Hokage, Not that weird one Kishimoto likes to write, Samurai Haruno Clan, Samurai Hatake Clan, Worldbuilding, because is breathing fire and walking on water anywhere realistic, but this fic isn't really about Naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24909181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orlha/pseuds/Orlha
Summary: Sakura grows up in a samurai household and decides she wants to be a shinobi. Where samurais and shinobis work together to cover their strengths and weakness, Sakura wants to be the next samurai-shinobi hybrid.ORWhere Sakura meets a kunoichi and is immensely enamored by their world and wants to be one. Where Kunoichis have been playing a long-con as 'fangirls' and Sakura has a B rank mission pay riding on her ability to convince Sasuke that she's a useless fangirl.
Relationships: Dai-nana-han | Team 7 & Haruno Sakura, Haruno Sakura & Badassery, Haruno Sakura & Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura & Nara Shikamaru, Haruno Sakura & Yamanaka Ino
Comments: 77
Kudos: 709
Collections: A Collection of Beloved Inserts, Konoha Collection





	1. Team 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is intentionally a non-angsty fic. So any portions that would/should receive angsty retrospection will be glossed over. (Or I say this, but we all know I'm famous for angst and it might sneak it)
> 
> This fic is AU. There are alot of changes and age changes to this fic. I don't like to vomit information, so whatever the changes are, they are going to be slow in popping up. A lot of things are underneath the underneath. They will be explained when the time is right. 
> 
> Please ignore large parts of Canon for this fic and enjoy the ride.

* * *

####  **【 BLADE OF HEART, HEART OF BLADE 】**

* * *

Seeing the other girls already at the corner of the field, Sakura hurries towards them and waves at them. Ami waves back vaguely, deep in conversation with Kasumi and Fuki. 

“Forehead! You’re late! You already missed Sasuke-kun’s arriving.” Ino flicks her hair, subtly signing in the kunoichi signs by playing with her earrings and hair. ‘ _We’re graduating today. Today will be our last day stalking him.’_

“Humph, bet Sasuke-kun didn’t even notice you,” Sakura sneers as she replies Ino by playing with her own hair. ‘ _How long you think it’d take him to realise he’s been the cover for the entire this year’s kunoichi class’ personas?’_

Ami giggles at her question. “Like Sasuke-kun will notice you,” she scoffs at Sakura and twindles with her hair. _‘With that kind of ego, I’ll bet never.’_

“Like you have any thing that Sasuke-kun will notice anyway,” Sakura replies, purposefully putting her hand on her hip. ‘ _I bet until someone tells him upfront.’_

Fuki ducks his head as he tugs his own hair. _‘I bet that he will notice it when we stop acting like his fangirls.’_

Ino rolls her eyes at Fuki. “Oh Fuki, always so shy.” She smiles coyly at Fuki, twirling her finger around a strand of hair. _‘I bet that he won’t believe it even when someone tells him upfront.’_

“What we are betting on?” 

Ino loops an arm over Sakura’s shoulder and tosses her hair. “Over who gets Sasuke-kun’s love, of course.” But she signs with a smug smirk like she’s already counting her eggs, ‘ _A whole weekend stay at the famous Yufuin Onsen with a plus one._ ’

✥.✥.✥

The sun is barely rising when Sakura runs through her family’s katas for the tenth time. A fraction faster than her previous run through. Her katana unwavering, her movements smooth and quick like the wind. A bead of sweat slides off her temples, across her cheek, splattering on her blade and as she thrusts her blade forward, Sakura hurriedly abandons her thrust, raising it to catch a sword in time.

“Oniisan,” she says.

Her eldest brother spins on the balls of a foot, sword sweeping across the ground. Sakura jumps forward and lands in a roll. She thrusts. Sidestepping, her brother narrowly misses her blade and his kimono split opens where her blade had been. 

Sakura’s breath is still steady, in spite of the quick movement. She parries her brother’s katana, their blades chiming with each parry, her hands are ringing from the force behind his blade. 

The Harunos have always been a family of samurai, but Sakura won’t be one, she will be like the Hatake Kurasuki branch. Sakura is both shinobi and samurai.

She bends back, dodging instead of parrying this time and kicks forward, catching his knee. Without hesitation, she’s already spinning around and hooks her foot around his neck. He stumbles, arms raising to grab her, and she exchanges herself with a tree branch nearby.

Sakura sheaths her katana, rushing forward to him. 

_Iaido._

Her blade is a blur of movement as she unsheathes it, holding it up to his neck.

“I yield,” he says, and she smiles, sheathing her blade with a quiet clack.

“Your sword skills are good enough to challenge Tsubaki-shoukeisama for the heir. I don’t get why you insisted on being a shinobi,” he grumbles. Ran would never get it. He had never inspired to be more than his heritage. 

Sakura doesn’t want to lead the Haruno clan, she doesn’t want to be another Haruno samurai. Just like Hatake Kurasuki done, and Hatake Sakumo who followed his mother’s footsteps, she wanted to combine both samurai and shinobi arts. Samurais think that shinobi arts are the antithesis of what samurais are. They’re quick where samurais are slow, short on endurance where samurais are sturdy and shinobis are incapable of taking blows where samurais can.

“Father understands and have allowed me to do as I please,” she reminds him.

“Which is what I don’t understand.” He shakes his head, running a hand through his dark pink hair. His green eyes are serious as they always are. Ran is a model of the perfect samurai. In a few years of training, Sakura expects that he would be moved to the capital’s division instead of just guarding Konoha. “You’re probably the best of our generation…”

“Of the Harunos you mean,” she smiles at him, already tired of the argument. She’s spent a decade training for this. She’s not going to change her now.

✥.✥.✥

Sakura might have faked being a fangirl of Sasuke, but she was absolutely not one. The brat had too much ego, too much pride to even interact with the rest of the class. She didn't count her fellow kunoichis, a gaggle of girls and boys pretending to fawn over him would never have likely succeeded in befriending him. Not that they cared. 

But it's too late now to change the bet, she grits her teeth and flashes a smile at Ino who only gives her a knowing look. Teamwork would be impossible with two brats on her team. 

She is doomed. 

Ino meets her at the back of the school during lunch and Sakura presses her head onto her knees with a long groan. 

“They are absolutely going to fail the jounin test,” Ino comments, picking through her side dishes. 

“Tell me something I don't know, Pig.”

Ino chews on her pickles and only shrugs. “Well, on the bright side, you definitely won't be slotted for the S&I Division. Your hair is too memorable to blend in. Ooo karaage.” Ino leans over to steal Sakura's fried chicken and Sakura rears up, slapping Ino's chopsticks away. 

“You're _really_ not helping.”

“Not much I can help,” Ino says. “The S&I division would have been a good fit for you should you not pass your jounin test. But all the techniques required for you to infiltrate is too obvious for higher ranked shinobis. And with your pink-”

“I _know_ , I read Suzume-sensei’s comments. What about your dad?”

Ino fumbles with her chopsticks. “You- you want to join T&I?! But the last time-”

“The _last_ _time_ I thought I could hit chuunin before choosing my specialty,” Sakura moans, cradling her head with her arms. “Being T&I would mean my love life would become a complete zilch.”

“What? Why?” Ino chews a mouthful of rice. “It’s not like you’re supposed to broadcast your speciality.”

“Yamanaka Ino. Don’t tell me you forget that one of the criteria on being in T&I is having a scary persona. My scary persona is going to scare all my potential boyfriends away! Look at Anko-san!” Sakura pulls out a kunai and stabs the table between with a low, menacing laugh. “The Beautiful Mitarashi Anko is here. Now give me all your dango!”

“First of all, don’t ever do that again. It’s creepy and it sounds _so_ much like her. And you know how saying her name can summon her.” Ino steals Sakura’s karaage and pops it into her mouth before Sakura could steal it back. “Second of all, you already have a scary persona. That’s why Dad offered you the post to begin with.”

“ _I have a scary persona!?”_

Ino snatches another karaage and puts her chopsticks down. “Okay imagine I’m Naruto,” she says as she’s chewing. “SAKURA-CHAN GO ON A DATE WITH ME.” She motions to Sakura. “Come on, realistic imagining.”

Sakura winces and clears her throat, slamming her fist onto the table. “ _NARUTO! I SAID NO! CHA!”_ The wood splinters under her fist. Meanwhile Ino eats the last karaage and grabs their flasks of miso soup and bentos as the table cracks into half. 

“There you go. Scary persona,” Ino says, handing Sakura’s bento back.

“Huh, I didn’t-” Sakura trails off. “INO! YOU ATE ALL MY KARAAGE.”

Ino immediately gets up, stuffing the rest of the rice and sausages into her mouth. “What is it? I hear Shikamaru-kun calling me. Got to go! Bye!”

“INO, YOU PIG! COME BACK HERE!”

✥.✥.✥

Hatake Kakashi is her instructor. 

Hatake.

Kakashi.

Hatake Kakashi is her instructor and they’re definitely going to fail his test so he’s very likely not going to be her instructor after all. Sakura isn’t sure if she can live this down. She tries her best to get the bells when the boys refuse to listen and without any doubt, she does not succeed. There was no way she could even imagine defeating a shinobi of Hatake’s calibre even if he went easy on them and he is because she’s heard of Hatake’s lightning kills from her cousins.

Sasuke with his ‘clan shinobis are better than you’ attitude clearly hadn’t paid attention to his shinobi classes in academy. Did he _seriously_ not pay attention that every team has an infiltration specialist shinobi and that most infiltration specialist were civilian born? 

Sakura wonders if she had acted a bit more seriously if Sasuke would respect her. She can’t help but think that Sasuke wouldn’t respect _anyone._ He certainly didn’t respect their instructor — The Hatake Kakashi, The Shinobi with a Thousand Jutsu but needs none to kill you (also known as a Thousand Jutsu Kakashi), the _only_ living shinobi aged twenty-five and below to have a flee on sight bingo page and the _only_ shinobi that’s both a shinobi and samurai. 

Well it’s too late for her to change it, especially when a one night stay for two at the Yufuin Onsen is a B rank mission pay.

Naruto is predictably tied to the target post for his blatant lack of following orders. Apparently, he had gone for the bentos instead of the bells. Sakura wonders if he even cares if he passed or failed this test. For all his boasting of being the next hokage, Sakura had never seen Naruto put effort into attempting to be one. How did he plan on becoming a hokage candidate if he didn’t know the history between the village and country he was talking to or the policies behind it?

Hatake leans over them with his weird eye smiles. “I changed my mind! You all should quit being shinobis! Yes, I think that’s what I’ll write in my report to discharge you from the forces.”

Sakura groans and pauses. 

_Wait a minute!_

She blinked owlishly at him. A jounin sensei-candidate can only suggest or recommend for a genin-candidate to quit, but he can’t force them to. Being part of the external forces is only a small part of being shinobi, there’s still the corps and administration. Not that Sakura wanted to be part of that… internal corps are dreadfully boring.

“I’m an _Uchiha,_ ” Sasuke grits out and Sakura can’t help but wonder if he thinks that would change things. There have been plenty of Uchihas before the massacre that had gone into corps and plenty of Hyuuga that had been recommended to quit. She read all the files while helping Shikamaru’s dad organise his personnel files.

“Is that so? I never noticed,” Hatake says dryly. He looks up at the sky, almost as though asking it for help and sighs long and heavy. “It’s clear that only one of you noticed the actual point of the test. The test isn’t about your personal power. Konoha is founded based on teamwork. Only Sakura attempted to get you two to work together. Maybe I should just pass her and fail both of you.”

Sasuke glares at Sakura and she shrinks back, wishing desperately that she could break out of her fangirl mask and yell at Hatake. Hah, who in sage’s mind would yell at Hatake? 

“ _Fine._ I’ll give you one last chance. Eat the bentos and we’ll start again after lunch. Oh, and don’t feed the short stack. Penalty for trying to steal the bentos,” Hatake continues and he disappears in a poof predictably.

 _A whole weekend stay at the famous Yufuin Onsen with a plus one._ She will never pass this test without exposing her mask. Snapping the lunch boxes open, she smells the chicken and green peppers wafting from the still hot food. There is a tiny signet on the back of the lid, the Yukimura heat seal. Yukimura’s lunches were fairly pricey. 

Naruto’s stomach grumbles. “It’s okay! I don’t need it!” he declares. 

“Don’t be stupid.” Sakura scoops a bit of rice with a pair of chopsticks. “I don’t see how you’re going to be a hokage at the rate you’re going.” She forcibly stuffs the rice into Naruto’s mouth. 

“Right, Sasuke- _kun?”_ she smiles prettily at him, throwing up as much fangirl aura up. 

Sasuke sneers at her then at Naruto and follows her actions, stuffing a green pepper into Naruto’s mouth. “I doubt a _deadlast_ can ever be a hokage.”

Naruto splutters. “Just you watch—”

Sakura takes a quick bite of the other side dishes and stuffs a mouthful of chicken into Naruto’s mouth as he starts another rant, momentarily quieting him. “How do you expect to become a Hokage Candidate if you don’t remember the history of SW3 or the history of the Kiri-Kumo war?”

“What has history have to do with being a Hokage!?”

“How are you going to hold a meeting with Kumo or Kiri or even Suna if you don’t know what not to say?” Sakura tells him. “Are you even taking your goal seriously?”

“Well— Well when _I_ become Hokage, I’m going to outlaw paperwork.” 

“I’m even surprised you can read,” Sasuke mutters. 

Sakura stuffs a cherry tomato into Naruto’s mouth before he can retort. “Idealistic but not realistic. Are you planning to pass laws without even reading about it?”

Their lunchboxes are almost empty by now and Naruto is still chewing furiously, trying to empty space in his mouth so he can talk.

“You guys…” Hatake looms behind them and they startle, causing Naruto to choke on his food. She can feel his chakra intent pressing down on them as he continues, “I thought I told you not to feed short stack.”

“Ah—” Sakura quickly holds back her words. A fangirl wouldn’t take the lead— 

Oh _no,_ she already revealed her mask during lunch. 

She eyes Sasuke nervously. 

‘ _My B-rank pay! Maybe Ino’s dad would pay me work some hours to do paperwork for him?’_

“If we don’t feed him, he won’t be able to pull his weight,” Sasuke says sullenly. 

Hatake’s chakra intent presses down more and Sakura gulps. It’s nothing like her cousins or even Ino’s dad’s when he was training with them but it’s Hatake. A part of her shrivels up with the idea of disappointing him. 

“Yea!” she tries to chirp up, playing the hopeless Uchiha fangirl that she’s supposed to be. “One for all, all for one!” she throws out the quote from a book she read once upon a time.

Hatake raises an eyebrow at her and she unconsciously leans back. “Maybe I should pass short stack and fail you two,” he says. 

She can feel his verbal jab at them. It’s okay, she already knew this would happen. Her fellow kunoichi had done a profiling exercise during their class and said that Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto were the worst match up as a team. Sakura swears it was like the Hokage pitting the top kunoichi skills for the bet against Sasuke. 

“It’s not their fault! Fail me instead!” Naruto says as he sprays his half-chewed rice on them.

Sakura closes her eyes and prays for patience. She will not hit him. 

“You want to go back to the academy?” Sasuke scoffs.

“What!? No!” More rice freckles her face.

She will not hit him. 

Sakura flicks the rice off her face, a tight and fake smile stretching her face.

She will not hit him. 

“I’m the one who should go back instead, Sasuke-kun here has an ambition to fulfill—”

“No Sakura-chan!” Naruto struggles against his restraints and some of that half chewed tomato lands on her.

 _SHANNARO. SHE WILL NOT HIT HIM._ Maybe throttle. 

She turns slowly to Hatake. She can see the tiny twitches in his shoulders and knows he’s laughing at her. “Sensei, if you must only have two students, then please send me back.”

Unless Sasuke truly hadn’t noticed , she knows her fangirl mask is hopelessly broken and pointless to attempt to salvage it at this point of time. 

Instead of failing her, Hatake crinkles his eyes and says, “you pass!”

Her face almost crumples at his words but saves it at the last minute, fast enough that probably no one noticed — probably. 

“Yay! We passed!”

“Here tomorrow at seven a.m.” Hatake calls out while he cuts Naruto loose.

Naruto bounces next to her. “Sakura-c _hhhannn,_ want to go on a date?”

Maybe she’ll murder him instead. She knows a very good spot in the Nara forest that Shikamaru would oblige.

“For the hundred and one time, No. I haven’t changed my mind then, I haven’t changed my mind now and at the rate you’re pestering me, I will not change my mind in the future. NO MEANS NO,” Sakura says and ascends into a yell. “Leave me alone!”

She turns to Sasuke only to find he’s gone and sees Naruto trudging off in a direction that Sakura knows with certainty is the direction of Ichiraku Ramen. 

With both of her teammates gone, at least she can stop pretending to be a fangirl— 

“Ahem.”

She spins on her foot and stares shocked at Hatake. “Y- you’re still here?”

“Did you not hear me asking you to stay behind?” he says, seemingly in a teasing tone.

“Nooo?” She narrows her eyes at him. “Well then—”

“So, I hear there’s a bet.” Hatake crinkles an eye at her.

“A bet?” she asks. 

“I did follow my _cute_ little student with enough ryo for an A rank mission.”

Sakura gapes at him. “You mean the one where he doesn’t know until someone tells him upfront?” she whispers. “And how did you know that?”

“Ah-ah-ah. Never ask Sensei his secrets!” He tweaks her nose. “Do try to keep your persona up better.”

“Sensei!” She yells and coughs as he disappears in a poof of smoke. 

Oh, that rude bugger!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all I'd like to say that I've been writing this (and rewriting it multiple times) for years. Google drive says 2 years. Anyone who messages me and "implies" or outright accuses me of stealing plot based on 1 or 2 similar threads can just stop right now. I will not call out names, you know who you are. Rude.
> 
> 2ndly, yes there might be ShikaSaku in this. So pro-ShikaSaku can rejoice and hope for it.
> 
> 3rdly there's a reason why Naruto and Sasuke acts like that. They will develop throughout this story.
> 
> And last but not least, I have many WIPS, sooo slow updates.
> 
> Additional notes: Shoukei means "Older male cousin", I might change this title later. I haven't decided how formality would be main family vs main family.


	2. Learning

Their team meeting the next day didn’t go any better. Sensei, like the day before, arrived three hours late. Sakura can’t help but think of how these three hours could have been better used by training — except she’s stuck in her useless fangirl persona. 

When her kunoichi teacher had instructed them on crafting their public personas, Sakura hadn’t thought she would be stuck with the same one she created when she was ten. Personas need to be coherent enough that clients and spies would assume it’s their real personalities and be unable to link their off-duty selves. Generally training grounds were places where the teams could properly get to know their diplomatic infiltration specialist as training grounds had Uzumaki fuinjutsu crafted all around them. 

_Wait, wait, wait._ Wasn’t the bet only that he wouldn’t know until someone told him upfront? Then it’s easy— 

She straightens her spine from where she had slumped over the training ground’s bridge’s railings and turns to Sasuke, opening her mouth to speak when Hatake appears in a poof of smoke. 

“My cute little students!” he says in a cheery voice. 

“Sensei!” she and Naruto jumps to their feet, yelling at him. “You are late!”

 _Also, he just blocked a perfect excuse to break her persona._

“Ah, I came across a fish drowning in a puddle and had to rescue it.”

Sakura squints at him. Or perhaps Hatake was a kunoichi like her too? It would make sense that he could read her conversation with the girls that day in front of the academy.

He hustles them down the bridge. “Okay~ Let’s start with the Morning Sun!” he says and arranges them in a line.

“Kaka-sensei… it’s already _noon_ sun,” Naruto says. 

“Morning sun, the graduation year’s academy kata, Naruto,” Sakura mutters, raising her arms in the beginning pose.

“And one and a two and a thre—” Sakura sees the rock Hatake flings out, nimbly shifting her position to narrowly avoid it.

“ _OW!_ Sensei! Why did you hit me!?” Naruto rubs his ribs.

Hatake smiles at them, taking care to smile at her a little longer, and a little more sinsterly she thinks. “Pay attention to your environment!” he says, and runs his hand through his hair, fingers subtly wiggling. _‘Don’t forget your persona.’_

She glares at him and Hatake only beams wider. His ability to subtly pass messages just nailed in her suspicions on him being one of her fellow kunoichi’s. 

“Back to your rising sun pose!” 

The team grumbles and goes back into position. The morning sun katas become the hellish sun katas. Sakura made sure to get hit far more than the other two, cementing her _useless_ fangirl persona. Tonight's katana practice will not be pleasant.

It’s late afternoon when training finally ends. Hatake signals to her to stay behind as he ‘disappears’ in a shunshin only to pop himself on a tree branch, hidden among the leaves. Sakura lays on the ground, forcing herself to look more exhausted and tired than she really is. Sasuke scowls at her and mutters a ‘ _useless’_ as he pivots on his foot and exits the training ground. 

“Sasuke-kun!” She makes a motion to climb to her feet and pretends to fail miserably. Pretending to be a fangirl to someone she has to spend nine hours with is _hell._ This is worse than the time where Suzume-sensei made them hold a henge into another kunoichi in their class and play their personalities the whole day. Making googly eyes at Sasuke, stammering at Sasuke…

“Ugh,” Sakura says out loud to the sky. 

“Mah, mah, Sakurrraa- _chan,_ ” Hatake appears beside her and ruffles her hair.

“That was horrible, sensei.” 

“Up, up, up!” He pushes her up. “I know you’re not as tired as you’re pretending to be. Persona off.”

Sakura shakes herself, mentally imagining taking a mask off and straightens her spine up the way her father had taught her since young. “Hatake-sensei,” she greets, hands behind her back, fingers loose and ready - a shinobi rest position.

“Proper introduction this time,” he says. There’s surprisingly no grin and teasing humor in his face and it’s weird. Sakura supposes it’s as weird as her mask being off.

“Still dreams, likes and dislikes, sir?”

“Weaknesses and strengths too.” He takes a seat on a large rock nearby and nods at her. 

“Haruno Sakura, daughter to Haruno Kizashi, sixth daughter of the main Haruno family. I like practicing in the early morning and reading. I dislike spicy food and flower arrangement but am competent at it. Strengths, agile and flexible with weapons and katas. Weaknesses, I do not have enough chakra to keep up a henge for more than a day… and my persona is a liability,” she tells the last part to him dryly. “Am I supposed to keep this up for much longer, sir?”

Hatake raises an eyebrow at her. “Aoba and Inoichi-san have convinced most of the jounin corps to bid for over two weeks but under a month. I have put money down for one and a half month. I’m sure my cute little student can keep it up for one and a half month, _right?”_

“I’m sure sensei would split half with me, right?” Sakura smiles at him. 

He puts a hand on his chest, looking in mock dismay. “My student! Stealing money from your _old_ sensei.”

“I’m sure you’re neither old from age nor old from seniority for being my sensei.”

Hatake stares at her and Sakura matches it back. Strange how barely a day ago she had been fangirling over Hatake Kakashi being her teacher.

“ _Fine._ Seventy-thirty.”

“Fifty-fifty.”

“Sixty-forty.”

“Sixty-forty and private katana lessons for a month.”

His dark grey eye scrutinizes her. “Are you not the second in line for the Haruno Clan head? Why would you need katana lessons from me?”

Knowing that he was being serious, Sakura squares her shoulders and lifts her chin up. “I’d need to learn to adapt it for shinobi fights. Just like Hatake Kurasuki and Hatake Sakumo had done.”

“But that is not me.”

“Sir, you are Hatake Kakashi. My cousins have worked with you. Your sword skills are excellent even by samurai standards. You are the Thousand Jutsu Kakashi, the only shinobi aged twenty-five and below to have a flee on sight bingo page. My various cousins from different branches have repeatedly stated that you have seemed to meld from your jutsu to katana work flawlessly which implies you have managed to follow Hatake Sakumo and Hatake Kurasuki’s steps. Not to mention your bingo—”

“You’re actually a fangirl,” Hatake snickers. 

“Well…” She could feel her cheeks colour in the cool afternoon air. 

“Very well. Sixty-forty and private katana lessons for a month.” He leans back on his rock. “As you’ll be keeping up your persona during training. After every training, I expect you to keep up your training, doing exactly what we do during training.” 

“Yes sir.”

“Well get going!” He pulls out an orange book and cracks it open. 

### ✥.✥.✥

Sakura wakes at four in the morning. Dew is still glistening on the grass as she steps into the Haruno training ground. Morning practice is one of the most peaceful things on her schedule. There is a sense of achievement after running through her daily katas. 

_Usually,_ that is. 

Sakura is fourteen this year. If she was going to be a samurai like her father and family are, then she would be the youngest samurai to be graduated. Sakura isn’t a samurai; Sakura is going to be a kunoichi. Yet all she has is the Haruno katas, the academy basic three and the kunoichi’s basic two and academy kunoichi’s katas.

She is no closer to becoming a hybrid of both samurai and ninja, no closer to becoming like Hatake Kurasuki. There is no clear path on _how._

Sakura unsheathes her katana, taking comfort in the weight of the metal and its fluidity as she runs through her katas. 

How would a shinobi move in a fight? How would that differ as a samurai?

She imagines the possible paces and tries to adjust her sword work. Samurai and shinobi are antithesis. Where she would raise her blade to block as a samurai, she should have dodged as a shinobi. 

Discouraged, she sheathes her katana. 

“That was mediocre.” Sakura turns and sees her father watching from the sides, dressed in his semi-formal outside clothes. He loosens his haori himo and shrugs it off, setting onto a large rock placed exactly for that purpose.

“Father,” she says, bowing.

“I gave my permission for you to be a kunoichi, assuming you would have made something out of it,” he says. 

She could feel the sheer weight of his presence as he steps towards her. The golden cranes flutter on the hems of his kimono but it doesn’t detract the weight of his intent, pressing down on her. She squares her shoulders and forces herself to look at him, his dark pink hair tied neatly in a topknot. 

“From the way I see it, I think I may have made a mistake.” His light grey eyes stared at her with an uncomfortable look of disapproval. He stops in front of her, lips pressed into a thin line. 

Then without warning, his sword flashes out. Sakura raises her blade, parrying it.

“Fight me like the kunoichi you wanted to be,” he barks. Father swings his sword and she pulls her katana up momentarily. 

No, that’s not right. For the samurais, the blade is life. It is offense and defense. For shinobis… it is just another weapon.

She ducks, blade sweeping at his feet. He slides backward.

She’s not a samurai, she reminds herself. 

Hand free, she flings barrage of kunai at him. He deflects it and quick steps towards her but before he can reach her, she replaces herself with a tree branch nearby. Disoriented, Father spins on the balls of his feet and blade thrust into what would have been a fatal blow.

His stern face breaks into a gentle smile. “There you go, my daughter.” He ruffles her hair. 

“Thank you, Father.”

Sheathing his sword, he stops by the rock and slings his haori over his shoulder. “Don’t let anyone stop you. Even if that someone is yourself, daughter.”

“Yes Father.”

He barks a laugh. “Come on, your mother is going to tan my hide for fighting in my councilwear.”

“Why, Father, I didn’t know your red and gold crane kimono is your _councilwear._ Aren’t formalwear supposed to be black,” she says with an arched eyebrow.

“It’s a new thing. _I_ have decided that red is the new black! The Harunos are going to wear all red now.” He pauses and eyes her black kimono. “We’re going shopping after this. You need a red outfit now.”

“Afraid people will forget our pink hair?” she asks dryly.

“Of course!” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm frustrated by having to put this note up. I was planning to have a longer chapter, with more hilarity of Team 7 and Sakura pretending to be a fangirl, unfortunately my chronic illness flared up and it's really bad this round. When it hurts to even breathe, its hard to focus on other things, so I posted what I had written.
> 
> As much as I loathe to type this, I will be going on a prolonged break (3monthish) to recover and stabilize my illness. I hope you'll be patient with me. Thank you.


	3. The blade

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suffixes and title - it’s a bit complicated, but I felt it was weird when it was in its equivalent in english, so I was encouraged to keep the suffix and put explanations for anything that might have flown over the english readers.
> 
>  **-sama (lord):** it’s to denote someone who is of a higher status that the speaker  
>  **-dono (lord):** to denote someone who is the same high rank as the speaker.   
> **Atotori-sama:** Lord Heir. This doesn’t really exist in japanese vocabulary, but as japanese don't generally call each other by their given names unless invited to, it’d have been really weird for a clan blacksmith to call Tsubaki as Tsubaki-sama. So I had Atotori-sama to make a separation of Haruno-sama (Kizashi) and Haruno-sama (Tsubaki)  
>  **Gorenjuu-sama:** Official wife of the daimyo  
>  **Oheya-sama:** Concubine of the daimyo that has born children. It’s a lot more complicated, but for the sake of the rest of us, I’ve most ignored the rest (for now?)  
>  **Musume:** Daughter. This is a common way of a father calling their daughters.   
> **Chichi-ue:** Father, but the very formal way of calling father. Used by Sakura to show distance and respect when observed by outsiders (or when she wants distance between her father and her)  
>  **Otousan:** Dad, but the informal way. Used by Sakura to cut the distance between her and her father.

Team training with Naruto and Sasuke is an exercise of patience. Something that Sakura has come to realise that she lacks. 

Adding to Hatake’s chronic lateness and equally ridiculous excuses… What was his excuse this morning? He had to find a cow because he ran out of milk?

Or perhaps it’s not just training with them that’s taking a toll on her personally. The training itself is meant to be challenging, but for someone who is supposed to pretend to be weak and useless…

Sakura lies on the ground, faking exhaustion while her teammates continue their push-ups. Sasuke looks smug and snide at her with his pitiful twenty and equally pitiful speed. She could outpace him any time if Hatake hadn’t asked her to continue with the fangirl mask.

When she’s free, she’s going to make a new mask. Maybe one that’s bright and chirpy like Naruto?

“You can do it!” Naruto yells. 

_Maybe not,_ she thinks. She didn’t think her vocal cords could keep up with that kind of yelling. 

“Okay!” Hatake claps his hands together. “We’re going to rest for five minutes and do a mission.”

“ _Mission!”_ Naruto says at his louder than regular Naruto pitch. Sakura didn’t think he could go louder but he did. Even Hatake winces.

“Say it louder, I think some people from Iwa might have missed it,” she mutters, pushing herself off the ground.

“What did you say?” Naruto says.

Sakura sniffs. “I said—”

Hatake lays a hand on her shoulder, as though guessing she is about to say. He runs his hand through his hair again, fingers wiggling in that reminder that she’s all too familiar with now. 

_‘Don’t forget your persona.’_

Sakura’s pathetic fangirl isn’t supposed to be useful. Crafted to look useless, underwhelming and completely incompetent, the rant on Hatake’s enhanced hearing and Naruto’s volume would not be things her mask would know. 

Sakura bites back the cutting words, brushing the dirt from her red dress. “I said nothing,” she says instead.

“Wonder what we’ll get! Maybe save a princess?” Naruto bounces down the road, uncaring that people had to dodge out of his way. Sasuke skulks behind him, pretending that he isn’t excited, but Sakura could tell from his increased pace that he was. 

Hatake pats her on the head. “I’m not a dog,” she hisses, irritated at the waste of her time. She could have been training the entire time!

“Maa. Private katana lessons, remember?” he says.

“It better be the sage best lessons, or I swear, I’ll—” Sakura stops herself just in time. What was she doing? Threatening Hatake Kakashi? Not just the Hatake Kakashi, but her superior officer?

She dies inside before plastering a smile on her face. “Ahhh— Sasuke-kun! Wait for me!” she calls out in a high-pitched girlish voice, hurrying after her two teammates. “ _Sasuke-kun!”_

Ignoring the face that her goosebumps are standing at that pitch and tone. Her superior officer had commanded her to last a month and a half. At least a week has passed. 

Just four weeks left. 

✥.✥.✥

The boys are unsurprisingly unexcited about missions after their first D rank. 

Sakura wants to scream and rip her hair out after they had failed three D ranks. 

FAILED. 

D ranks.

Who fails D ranks? Aside from her team? 

Iruka looks at them then at her with an unconcealed look of sympathy. Even Ami and her team hadn’t failed so spectacularly.

‘ _Fail again?’_ Ami asks with a fling of hair.

‘ _What do you think? They spent the entire D rank fighting,’_ Sakura grumbles back in kunoichi code.

“So, what would you like today? There’s groceries for Yamazaki-san, weeding for Ibaraki-san, Gorenjuu-sama has lost her necklace and her cat tora. So, you have a choice of finding her cat, Tora or her necklace in the—”

“Necklace!” Sakura quickly says before the boys could inject a word. She might kill them if they failed another grocery run or weeding. Or set them on fire. Set their hair on fire and see if they have any more hair to grapple with each other.

Iruka blinks and says slowly to her. “Are you sure you want to find Gorenjuu-sama’s necklace? It’s very likely in the…”

“Yes. Anything is better than Tora or groceries or weeding.” 

“Very well… Gorenjuu-sama lost her necklace, these are the details.” He hands the slip of mission brief to her where Naruto snatches it without a word of gratitude. 

Hatake grabs Naruto and spins him around, forcing him to bow at Iruka. “Thank you. I have accepted the mission,” he intones. Naruto fights his hold before resigning to repeating after Hatake.

“Who is this Go… juu… thingymaji,” Naruto asks, squinting at the paper. 

“I don’t even know how you want to become the Hokage if you don’t know who Gorenjuu-sama is,” Sasuke mutters. Reaching over, he tugs the paper out of Naruto’s hand.

“Gorenjuu-sama, is the title official wife of the Daimyo. The Fire Daimyo has one official wife and two unofficial wives, which is also called a concubine. Madam Shijimi is titled Gorenjuu-sama, Lady Masami and Lady Hasuko are titled Oheya-sama,” Hatake replies. 

“Gorenjuu-sama’s necklace is supposed to be taken by an animal and the sensor squad had last seen it escape into the sewers.”

“Oh my,” Hatake feigns a look of shock. “Good luck kiddos! I think I heard my friend calling me, would you look at that! Have fun kids!”

Hatake disappears in a poof of smoke that slowly dissipates, revealing Sasuke’s look of ‘you dare do this to me, you puny mortal’ at her.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” Sakura mumbles to the floor. It couldn’t be worse than failing a weeding mission.

Three hours later, Sakura wishes she could take it all back. She didn’t think a D rank mission to retrieve a necklace from the sewers would involve much more than being knee deep in muck.

How wrong she was.

The giant racoon roars at her again, and she feels its saliva coat the front of her clothes. There the necklace is, on its paw like a little bracelet. A creature its size _has_ to be a summons or some sort of ninken. Hadn’t there been a book on summons that bred with normal animals and created ninken or something?

Sakura dodges to the left, ignoring the muck that she had just rolled in. 

“Sir— I apologise if this caused you distress—”

“Sakura-chan! Are you seriously trying to talk to an animal?!” Naruto yells, blocking the racoon’s swipe with some well-timed shadow clones.

“Read the book ‘Summon Wise: A look into Ninken’ by Ogino Akane!” She flattens herself against the side of the sewer. 

“Are you seriously giving book recommendations now…” Sasuke deadpans. He leaps up, hands flashing through seals. 

_No. Not the fire release. Not in the sewage._

“No—!” 

But before Sasuke completes his hand seals, he’s drenched in a water jutsu, knocking his concentration and chakra channelling off. 

“Maa… I leave my cute little genin for a little moment and I come back to see them trying to blow themselves up,” Hatake says in a voice drier than Suna’s sand.

“Hn.” 

“Bad puppies.”

Sakura gives Hatake an unimpressed look. He had waited for them to fight the giant racoon for a whole thirty minutes before jumping in from his ceiling perch to help them. Hatake raises an eyebrow at her, almost seemingly mocking her ineptitude and she glowered back at him. 

Tonight, she decides. Tonight, she’ll rip out all of her posters and bingo pages of him from her bedroom walls.

The giant racoon roars again. Sakura is almost tempted to just dash forward and grab the necklace.

“Kaka-sensei!” Naruto says as he sends out another wave of shadow clones to block another paw strike.

“Throw Sakura to him,” Hatake tells him.

 _“What.”_ Sasuke swivels to her.

“What—” Sakura starts say before Sasuke and Naruto haul her up and toss her into the Giant Racoon. “I’ll _keel you._ _Rip your balls off and feed—”_

She weighs her chakra down, causing herself to drop faster and narrowly catches herself behind the ears of the Giant Racoon. 

“Use diplomacy, Sakura-chan!” Hatake says.

_I’ll show you diplomacy when I rip your balls off and feed them to Racoon King._

“Racoon-sama.” She slides a bit down his head, and he pauses.

_Is it scratches?_

Hesitating, she scratches his head again and the giant racoon rumbles, eyes closing in an almost blissful manner. 

“I understand that the necklace is stuck on your paw…” she says, he growls, and Sakura resumes her scratching. “Racoon-sama, I’m sure it hurts, so if you would please let us take it away.”

He doesn’t reply. Sasuke, taking it as a cue, steps forward carefully and unlinks the necklace carefully. 

They return to the mission room after spending thirty minutes cleaning the necklace. Sewage covered, saliva coated, but still alive and finally, _finally,_ a successful mission.

✥.✥.✥

Father is at the training ground entrance when Hatake dismisses them for the day, dressed in a new dark red kimono though instead of cranes this time, it’s the traditional gold embroidered Haruno flower prints.

“Musume,” Father calls as she fakes exhaustion and stumbles towards him. His brows crease at her actions, lips flattened. 

“Chichi-ue!” she says, interrupting anything that he might say that would break her persona. 

Sasuke glances at them, lips twisted in a sneer. He snorts and turns from them, stalking towards the old Uchiha training grounds without even a ‘bye’. Not that Sakura expected from him. 

“How unpleasant,” Father says. “Now that I’ve had the misfortune of meeting him, I see what Yamanaka-dono had been talking about. Hatake-san.” He nods at Hatake who sauntered slowly towards them, pushing Naruto out of the training ground, and locking it behind him.

“Haruno-sama,” Hatake greeted and bowed, pushing Naruto’s head down into an appropriate angle.

“Wah—!?” Naruto splutters. “What was that for Kaka-sensei?”

“It looked like someone didn’t teach you manners when meeting ranked personages. As your sensei, it falls to me to make up for it.”

“Person-what?”

“Personages. Nobles. People with rank and authority. Haruno-sama is the head of the Konoha Haruno branch. He is also the second in command of the samurai standing forces for Hi’s shinobi training city—” Hatake says wryly. Before Naruto could make a getaway from his lecture, Hatake clamps a hand on Naruto’s shoulder. “Now, _now,_ Naruto- _kun_. You’re a shinobi now, a soldier of Konoha, a shinobi that may be reassigned anywhere in Hi after you complete your training in Konoha—”

Naruto struggles, attempting a substitution jutsu only for Hatake to sit on him as he drones on.

“When and if you are promoted from being a small genin-fry, you’ll be fully in charge of all your interactions with your higher up. As a genin, you could get away with disrespect, but as chuunin - unless you’d like to be decommissioned—” 

Tuning out Hatake’s lecture, she turns to her father. “Why have you come, Chichi-ue?” Sakura asks. 

“You are a kunoichi now, it’s time to outfit you appropriately. Your mother has managed to secure an appointment with the Aburame Hisa Tailors.” 

Hatake waves goodbye, flashing hand signs to her. _Tomorrow. Morning. 7 o’clock. Training Ground eighteen._

Sakura signs back an affirmative.

Konoha is cool now in spite of summer just being around the corner. When she’s done with her training in Konoha, she would likely be transferred to another base. After all, there rarely is any shinobi that’s fully stationed in Konoha unless they’re a sensei, waiting for a new batch of recruits to break in. 

These days of training with her intermediate family and training with Hatake would become memories. She hopes they would be pleasant memories. Sakura is fully aware that not all teams like each other. Learning to work with people that irks her is also a lesson she would have to learn eventually. 

Father cuts a path through the afternoon crowd with his stocky build. Afternoon crowds in the week after the academy’s graduation are always a crazy mess. Sakura inches closer to Father, glad that he had his military and hierarchy rank out on full display across his kimono that most people had swerved from him. In a military base like Konoha, even a civilian family is likely to have at least once military - samurai or shinobi in their circle of relationships. Whether or not Father is the sort who uses his rank for personal purposes, it’s always best not to court trouble. 

It takes them a full thirty minutes of walking for them to arrive at the Haruno smithery. 

“I thought we were going to the tailors?” she asks hesitantly. Sakura had given up her right to be a samurai by graduating as a kunoichi. 

“Yes. After this.” Father steps into the smithery. “Satou-san?” 

Sakura follows him, letting the blast of heat wash over her. The sounds of metal chiming floods her ears and she quickly muffle it with some chakra over her ears. 

“Haruno-sama.” Satou rises from his accounting books and bows deeply. “This way, Haruno-sama.” 

He ushers them into the dojo where he sits formally and offers a katana up to her.

“Chichi-ue?” Sakura had resigned herself to the fact that she would not get her Haruno katana because she is not a Haruno samurai; she will never be one. The katana that old Satou offered had the Haruno mon engraved on it.

“Take it, musume,” Father says. 

“But I’m not—” she starts. Perhaps this is a test to see if she would give it up for recognition, Sakura thinks. “I will not be a Haruno samurai,” she finishes, lifting her chin up to him. “I thank you for the offer, Chichi-ue, but I will be a Haruno kunoichi. Kunoichis do not carry clan katanas.”

“It would honor me for you to carry my blade into battle,” Old Satou says. 

“What?”

“Everyone knows that you could have beaten Atotori-sama1, Sakura-sama.”

“That’s not true—”

Father folds his arms and takes a seat next to Satou. “You may not be a titled Haruno samurai, but you are going to be a Haruno samurai-shinobi, no?”

Her heart skips a beat as she immediately understands what Father meant. Folding her feet beneath her, Sakura sits before Satou, bowing to him and the katana. 

Satou lifts the katana with two hands, head bowed. “One that conquers the steel carries the heart of blades.”

Her hand trembles just a little as she reaches up to receive the katana. The words that all warrior Harunos had memorised from young, words she had resigned never to be allowed to speak flowed out of her in a hoarse, almost seemingly painful rasp, “One that protects the heart, conquers the steel.” 

“Then go. Conquer the steel. Carry the blade of heart, be the heart of the blade.”

“I accept my responsibility.”

Satou releases the katana into her hands and it feels so much heavier than she had expected. The weight of her promise and weight of expectations all in this sword.

“Th-thank you Otousan!” She throws herself at him, carrying her arms around him. “Thank you, thank you, thank you—” 

He wraps his arms around her, pressing his cheek to her head. “Shush, my dear musume. We didn’t do this for you to cry.” He wipes her tears away with a gentle finger. “We’re not done yet.”

“We’re not?”

Father looks down at her, his light grey eyes twinkling in mirth. “Of course not. You’re going to be a kunoichi, no? Satou-san has crafted armguards, kunai and shurikens too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry to bring bad news and good news. Keeping this short.
> 
> The Good news, you'll likely see a bump of chp updates.  
> The bad news, is that if this work isn't completed by Mar, it'll be on an indefinite hiatus. 
> 
> If you want the longer version, you can read the note here: <https://orlha.tumblr.com/post/627722081899069440/due-to-some-circumstances-it-seems-like-ill-be>


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy some Naruto development & yet more worldbuilding. Sasuke will be eventually here... _eventually_
> 
> Also Sasuke doesn't defect in this fic. Not sure if ppl are interested in knowing this in advance.
> 
> Beta-ed by: Silent Comfort

When Hatake turns up for their morning session, it is as a man with reddish brown hair and a clean-shaved face as well as being precisely on time. 

“You are?”

“My, my. My cute little genin can’t even recognise me without my mask and persona?” he smirks in a way that’s oddly sensual. 

She gapes at him, opening and closing her mouth reminiscence of a goldfish. “Hatake-sensei?” she squeaks. 

“The very same. Eventually, your further kunoichi studies will teach you to craft a finer persona. We can’t do much for your hair though,” he says in a slow, languid way with a voice too high-pitched to be Kakashi. He sits on the training post, moving so unlike Hatake Kakashi, the jounin. There are small flairs of movement that sets _this_ Hatake very far apart from his jounin persona. 

“So, this is your _real_ personality?” 

He shrugs. “Do we really have a single real personality? I like to think most of my personas are little facets of me mixed with something else. _Most_ of course. There’s Yushuke who is a sixty year old man and adores little children…” Hatake pauses then adds, “in a lesser creepy way and more of a _motherly_ way.” 

“I’m very glad you clarified that,” Sakura says dryly. “Otherwise it would have been alarming. An adult who _adores_ little children.”

“Which as much as I like teaching, I think little children are terrors from hell.” He laces his fingers together. “My point being, all my personas are fully fleshed out, almost real.”

He tosses her a reddish-brown wig and a bag of clothes which she puts on behind a tree. Visually, she would be unfamiliar to anyone who knows her. 

“What kind of persona would this be?” Hatake asks.

“Next to you, likely a cousin.” She smoothes the floral dress. “And are we _not_ having a private katana lesson now?” 

“ _You_ , are Team 7’s DI specialist. Yet you are sloppy. You require me to remind you repeatedly. It’s even a wonder that Sasuke has not noticed all the imperfections. Was graduating as this year’s Top Kunoichi also a cover?” he asks.

Sakura bristles at his insinuation. “I won it fair and square—”

“Then why is your fangirl persona without that?” he says. Hatake doesn’t raise his voice, but it still cuts deeply and Sakura bends her head down in shame. 

“The bet was only to not have Sasuke—” She scuffs the ground with her sandals.

“The _bet_ was a pretext for you to practice maintaining a persona in the field without dire consequences.” Hatake pushes himself off the training post. “Here’s what we are going to do. I am Sukea, your photographer cousin. You will be Sayo, my civilian cousin from a town called Hochai. We are going to take a walk around town, meet people and flex refining this new persona. And _if_ you pass this, I may consider resuming our private katana lessons.”

“Yes, sir.” She nods, taking a deep breath to fall into her persona like Suzume-sensei had taught them.

“But Sakura, no more cutting corners. _Understand?”_ he asks, lips pressed thinly together.

“Yes, sir.” 

“Remember _you_ are the support. And you signed up for it for five years straight to qualify to graduate as a kunoichi. If you wanted to be a _combat_ shinobi, then you should have quit then and returned to shinobi lessons.”

“I understand.”

✥.✥.✥

“Isn’t the red so much nicer?” Father asks with a sulky face, holding up the red silk cloth next to her forearm. “We could have embroidered Haruno flower prints on them…”

“ _Chichi-ue,_ I’m a kunoichi—”

He perks up. “Precisely! I’m sure you’ll find a use—”

“Not with gold embroidered Haruno flower prints, Chichi-ue. Those flower prints are only worn by ranked Haruno nobles and officers. I doubt a street rat or a maiko would have the money, let alone the rank to wear it. And as a kunoichi on duty, I’d need something less noticeable and more battle-ready,” Sakura says. She pulls out another two cloth swatches, rubbing them between her fingers.

“Haruno-san, if you would like something more battle-ready and unobtrusive, we can weave mesh between two layers of cloth,” the Aburame salesperson suggests. They pull out a sample that’s slightly thicker than the cloth she had been looking at. “This cloth is a common material for most civilians throughout Hi, but here at Aburame Hisa Tailors, we have further treated it to be blood resistant. The mesh is fine enough to be unnoticeable and strong enough to resist most stabs and knifework. This is very popular with kunoichis, and we offer embroidery too for casework kimono. Casework kimono is subsidized by the Hokage, so it’s only a fraction of the price.”

“We’ll take it!” Father says. “See! Isn’t this pretty? We could have this silk on the outside and it’ll be _both_ pretty and durable. Rainou-san, could we get an order of this in dark red?”

Aburame Rainou smiles slightly, pushing their sunglasses up onto their nose bridge. “I’m afraid that _silk_ isn’t the kind of silk that maiko’s would wear. This is royal silk that only nobles and ranked personages are allowed to wear.” 

Father and Rainou bicker over the cloth and Sakura wanders away knowing it’d take long. Afterall, Father always had more of a fashion sense than Mother did. She stops in front of the boutique window where they had set out different types of hair and hand accessories. Ino and her had outgrown their friendship scarfs, it is probably time to get themselves new ones. She fingers the charm bracelets. The little pig charm is cute, but bracelets could get caught easily in battle.

“Sakura-chan!” 

She looks up startled to Naruto’s beaming face through the door. 

“Wanna go on a date?” 

“No, Naruto. Do you not understand what _no_ means?” 

“That’s what you said the other time! But no then doesn’t mean no now!” he grins at her. “So, so? Go on a date with meeee, Sakura-chaaaaan!”

“I’ve just said no, and I’ve already said no at least a hundred and one times!” Sakura throws her hands up exasperated. 

“Then I’ll just have to keep trying, you know!” Naruto beams at her.

“Boy… has no one ever taught you manners?” Father asks, looming up from behind her. His arms are crossed and his eyes flash with that steely quality Sakura knows he usually gains when assessing a battle ahead.

For a moment Naruto looks stumped, wide blue eyes blinking up at the stranger, before dropping down to Sakura and pounding his fist on his palm, he yells, “you’re that person-thingamajig thing! That person who— who— sees the men with swords! When _I_ become Hokage, you’ll be under me!”

Father’s face darkens. “The Konoha Samurai Division are _not_ under the Hokage, and _you_ are not the Hokage.” He claps his hand around Naruto’s bicep and continues with a voice so cold that Sakura could feel ice sliding down her spine in spite of not being Father’s focus, “I had assumed your mentor would have taught you manners, but it’s clear he has failed for both the topics of meeting ranked personages _and_ treating women right.”

Inclining his head to the Aburame, he says, “Rainou-san, we will just order what we have so far and add the regular items kunoichi order to it.”

Rainou nods. “Of course, Kizashi-sama. They’ll be ready to collect in five days.”

“Perfect. Now if you excuse me, I have a _boy_ to teach some manners to.” 

He half ushers, half drags Naruto down the street and into the Sakurai Teahouse where he requests a private tearoom. 

“Sit, boy.” Father folds his legs under him into the formal seiza and motions to the cushion across him. 

Naruto clumsily crosses his legs on the cushion, his ragged training clothes in stark contrast to the high-class teahouse that Sakura was accustomed to visiting with her father. She prepares the tea and sets it in front of them. Father gives Naruto a once-over.

“Sit properly,” Father commands, rapping his knuckles on Naruto’s knees. “This is a formal setting. You must learn to sit like you belong in a formal setting even if you aren’t a kunoichi.” 

Naruto glances at Sakura and back at Father, hastily trying to copy their sitting postures. “Sakura—”

“You will not talk,” Father interrupts harshly. “You will listen, and you will listen well. Because the next time I hear this happening again…” He pulls out his katana and wakizashi and sets it between them. “I will not be polite anymore.”

Naruto gulps audibly in the silence of the room, staring at Father until the shishi-odoshi in the garden cracks loudly against the rock. 

“It is _per-so-na-ages_ and personthingiji, or whatever you called it. A boy can change a lot from his childhood, I will not disparage on whether you can or cannot become the Hokage. But for you, right now, it is an impossible task.”

Father takes a sip of his tea. “Good tea, Musume.” She nods at his words.

"A man should accept a rejection gracefully," he says. “No means no. Whether it's just once or twice. A man who cannot accept it, is an uncouth man and _I_ do not tolerate uncouth men.”

“But—” Naruto starts and snaps his mouth shut as his eyes fall on Father’s blades. 

“Go on. I will not strike anyone for asking questions.”

"But, the books say that when a woman says no, they mean yes?" Naruto asks, almost timidly.

Father sighs. “Books and by books, I mean novels are largely fantasy and not true reflections. Some women like to read about rape and harems, it doesn’t mean they want to be part of one.” 

Sakura refills his cups and he takes another long sip. “Yes and No are part of consent. Consent is like tea. Just because someone has tea leaves at home, doesn't mean they are obligated— obligated means _have to_ — to make tea for you. A gentleman will always accept a no for a no and move on. Understand?”

“No…?”

Father taps his finger against the teacup and sighs again. “Just because you like her, doesn’t mean she has to return your affections. You, refusing to accept her rejection, is undermining her ability to say no. Today’s no is the same no for every other day until stated otherwise. Today’s yes, doesn’t mean tomorrow is a yes either. She is free to refuse you anytime, anywhere. Even if she had said yes an hour ago and then changed her mind later, and you _will_ accept that. Whether it’s Sakura or any other woman, man, non-binary. That is the way of being a proper person. Understand?”

He gazes at Naruto and Naruto swallows dryly. “Y-yes.”

Father stares at him. “Now, I read all of my daughter’s teammates’ files. I understand you’re an orphan and being the only father available in your team, if you have questions that you need to ask, you can write it down and ask my daughter to ask me as I may not be readily available.”

Naruto nods vigorously and raises his hand. “What’s non-binary?”

“How did you pass your class if you don’t even know this? Do you know how sex works?” Father mutters.

“Uh…” Naruto looks at Sakura.

“Chichi-ue, I shall go out and place an order for some anmitsu and wagashi for mother,” Sakura says. She sat through the entire sex talk during academy then later an in-depth one in kunoichi class, she isn’t going to sit through another one just because Naruto decided to skip it.

Quickly, she slides the door close behind her and just in time as she hears Father start his lecture on sex.

✥.✥.✥

Sakura lay on the ground faking exhaustion after Hatake had called for lunch break. 

“Sakurrrra-chan?” Naruto peered at her. “Ne, ne, I have questions. What is cara?”

“Cara?”

“That thingamajig that your dad said you use for birth control? How can cara affect that and also—”

“Cha- _kra,_ Naruto-kun.” She rolls her eyes and pushes herself off the ground. “I’m wondering if Iruka-sensei was biased enough to let you pass without knowing what chakra is.”

“ _What?_! Iruka-sensei’s not biased!”

Sakura raised an eyebrow at him. “Then tell me what chakra is?”

“C _h_ a _k_ ra, is the thingamajig you use for your birth control, you know?!”

“Chakra is the energy in your body. It’s made up of yang and yin. Yang is physical and yin is mental, the more you work on your mental things like counting and researching, the more your yin capacity increases. Likewise, your yang is affected by physical things like running and katas and sparring. If you have an imbalance, control over your chakra will be difficult as most people are unable to separate them out and use them independently. Clans like Yamanaka and Nara are well known for being yin dominant. Clans like Akimichi and Hyuuga are well known for yang dominant,” Sakura explains, drawing simply diagrams on the ground for Naruto.

“So like the Samurai moon girl!” he says loudly.

“Samurai moon girl?” Sakura remembered vaguely reading that comic when she had been younger.

“Yea! Like she’d go Moon tiara! Merge my power and HYAAA!” 

She blinks owlishly at Naruto trying to process his words and he blinks back at her, his smile fading a little. “Noo? I thought it had a lot Hyaaa and POW, you know?”

“I… guess?” In a way, the manga Samurai moon girl’s powers had been similar to chakra. The author had obviously been an ex-military that had mixed the way samurais and shinobis worked their chakra together. But it wouldn’t be a perfect explanation.

“Then what about that thingamajig that the girls do with their cara and hair?”

Sakura resigned herself to drawing some graphics to make it easier for Naruto to understand.

“Hn— Dobe doesn't even know what chakra is,” Sasuke says almost snidely. 

“I know right, _Sasuke-kun?”_ Sakura says and flutters towards him. “I don’t even know how he managed to pass. Say, want to go for lunch _together,_ Sasuke-kun?” She places a hand on his arm, plastering an overeager smile on her face. 

He yanks his arm out of her hands with an all too familiar look of disgust. “ _No_ ,” he says. Sakura can hear the venom dripping from his single word as he stomps off to wherever he is going for lunch.

“Humph,” Sakura says when he finally disappears from her senses. “Shall we, Naruto-san?”

“What?” 

Naruto hurries after her and she motions to Hatake ‘ _Kunoichi meeting, lunch, Daichi’s Cafe.’_

Hatake nods. ‘ _Not going,’_ he signals back in kunoichi code. ‘ _Don’t be late returning.’_

“Where are we going?” Naruto asks after almost fifteen minutes of walking. It surprises her that it even took him this long to ask. 

“You asked about the thing that girls do with their chakra and hair. There are many ways and houses of thought for that. I’m introducing you to them.” 

They stop at Daichi’s cafe, where towering bamboo trees fence the cafe. She swings open the small metal gate, motioning to Naruto to follow and starts her way up the cobbled rock path dappled with sunlight filtering through a tall maple tree on the side of the courtyard. The interior isn’t as traditional as the outside, with western wood tables, plush seats and a wooden staircase on the side.

“Come on.” Sakura tugs at Naruto, steering him through the lunch crowd and up the stairs.

“OH! Sakura-chan!” Fuki calls out. “People, Sakura-chan is here!”

The gaggle of kunoichis cluster around Naruto and her, all filled with expectant looks. “So? I heard your team is so disastrous that you only passed _one_ D rank out of ten,” Ami presses.

“And that _that_ Uchiha really can’t communicate,” Fuki adds. He hands Sakura the menu which she passes to Naruto. 

“Try the omurice, it’s good,” Sakura says to Naruto.

“Get the one with ebi-fry. And demi-glace sauce. That’s Sakura’s favourite,” Ino says. Turning to Sakura, she raises an eyebrow. “Why did you bring Naruto anyway?”

“He asked about that thing girls do with their chakra and their hair. So I figured I’d bring him over and introduce it to him.” Giving them a sly smile, Sakura leans an elbow on Naruto’s shoulder. “He also asked how chakra works for birth control… So who better to teach him, than the seduction corps?” 

Naruto gulps as they smiled slowly at him. “Se-seduction _corps?”_

“Oh why Naruto-k _uuuun_ , didn’t you know kunoichi is a broad term for shinobi who use their bodies? Whether it’s diplomatic infiltration DI like Sakura or seduction infiltration?” Ino purls, running a hand down his arm. 

_‘Be nice,’_ Sakura signs with a quick twitch of her hair and Ino pouts. 

“Speaking of which, did you hear about what happened to the daimyo’s third daughter?” Fuki says as he refills their teacups.

“The Beautiful Mitarashi Anko is here! And I heeeaarrrd from a _little_ weedle birdy that she had run away with Watanabe’s seventh son,” Anko says, popping from behind Fuki and snatching a dango from Fuki’s plate. Her coat puffs out behind her, showing almost all of her assets - not that anyone really cared.

“My dango!”

“Does this mean I have to change my method?” Genma groans. “I hate working with nobles.”

Fuki quickly licks all his remaining dango and Anko looks at him in disgust.

✥.✥.✥

It’s an hour and half later when they finally leave the cafe. “Ne, Sakura-chan, do you know where I can find the books you recommended previously and what did Genma grumble about what Anko said?”

“Well… Genma is the DI working on a classified mission in the capital. Depending on who is currently in favour with the daimyo would have different ways of getting information or whatever Genma is trying to achieve. Watanabe Hiroki has been the favoured son of the head of Watanabe. With him eloping with the Daimyo’s daughter on the other hand… depending on how their drama plays out, the Daimyo may or may not take it favourably,” Sakura pauses at Naruto’s glazed look with a sigh. “I’ll bring you the books tomorrow if you are still interested.”

He nods and that’s that. Or so Sakura thought.

Naruto’s room is a lot more… populated with books when she came around to drop off yet more requested books the next week. 

“That’s… a lot of books. Are they expired library books?” She tilts her head reading the book titles. “Daimyo’s genealogy… That’s a really dry read.”

“Yea…” Naruto rubs the back of his head sheepishly. “I fell asleep reading it about six times already. But you know? I gotta a lot to catch up, you know? Gotta learn all this to become a Hokage.”

Sakura purses her lips. “I’m surprised you didn’t give up.”

“Hey!” He thumbs his chest, puffing it proudly. “I never give up! That’s my life motto, you know?!”

“I had assumed you would give up once you knew what it took, because you’re starting way below everyone who is striving to be one and even the ones who aren’t. You realise that there’s going to be at least one more Hokage before you, considering Sandaime’s age, right?” Sakura tells him slowly. “Depending on who wins it, it may set a precedent on who is the next Hokage after them.”

Naruto looks down at his hands. “I saw a lot of bad things when I was living on the streets, I want to fix it. It won’t be enough being a jounin.”

Sakura nods. “I can get behind that reason, but you _do_ understand you’re up against people like Ino, and Kakashi, and Tenten. People who have trained intensely for it.”

Naruto looks at her, his blue eyes staring back at her unwaveringly. “I know, but I can’t give up.”

She hums and ruffles his hair, dropping the books off on a stack on his dining table. “Well, then feel free to ask me anything.”

“Ne, ne. Sakura-chan, your father is awesome, he taught me how to use the dictionary, but then, then. You see, you see, I’m trying to find this word… and I can’t find it…”

“Well that’s because it’s slightly different and archaic—” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We will be in for some time skips in a bit. And increase the pace up.
> 
> Further notes: Some readers have commented on it being cruel for Sasuke to endure that after having gone through the trauma of massacre and what not. Just to address it, but yes, while it's seemingly cruel, Sasuke did get some benefits from it (even though he refuses to consider it benefits). There are a lot of things that are not yet revealed, like the truth of the massacre, the fallout and what happened. It will be addressed and explained in the Sasuke arc, along with the reveal of the bet and what not. Just take a grain of salt that there a lot of underneath the underneath. 
> 
> Also hint: In Chp1 the kunoichis talk about profiling exercises, which hints that they did at least consider their target profiles.


	5. The mission

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a story I’ve been working since 2018, I’m writing awfully slow. I guess I’m just that really slow writer that everyone gets annoyed at. xD; I have reasons! See first of all, Sasuke-fans are really scary… *cough* And secondly since I’m pretty biased against Sasuke (he’s like my no.1 most disliked character in Narutoverse) and this fic isn’t out to bash anyone. Character development is going to be a huge thing in this fic. I wanted to make sure that Sasuke gets that neutral development without my shadow-lens tinting it. I agonized over the Sasuke portion over this and may have revised the dialogue several times. I'm not 100% happy with this chp, but eh... I've been dragging it along long enough. 
> 
> **SO HEADSUP FOR SASUKE-FANS!** Again, please, please, please understand that the fic is in Sakura’s pov. Which means her biasedness for/against anyone is colouring it. It also makes her unreliable because we’re not reading this from an omnipotent pov. Things happen in the background with/without her knowledge and just like some people don’t like talking about things, things may go unmentioned like sometimes they assume that that person already knows. Sakura starts off disliking Sasuke for a reason that isn’t mentioned in-depth (it will be, just not in this chp). This does not mean her reason is valid or invalid.

They go through another week of D rank missions. Sakura had thought that Naruto would have cracked from the sheer amount of boredom he exudes during it. Instead, he just grits his teeth and seems to slump every time Hatake decides to pick up the Tora mission.

They are plucking weeds at Old Takezawa’s garden, a gardening mission three times in a row. Even Sakura wanted to scream in frustration. D ranks missions are almost pointless and useless. That’s probably why Hatake likes to pick the Tora mission up. At least that has some tracking and ambushing training involved.

“I’m surprised you haven’t yelled at Sensei for a better mission,” she says later to Naruto when Hatake dismisses them for lunch. 

He deflates almost like a balloon. “Well, ‘cause...” Naruto scratches his head sheepishly. “After talking to your dad, there’s like _so_ much work to even become a Hokage can-ni-date, you know. So like, you know.”

He averts his eyes, looking at the village as they walk to Daichi’s cafe. It’s turning out to be a hot and sweltering summer. There are a lot less people on the streets at the peak of the day as the heat practically wafts off the streets. Even Naruto had downgraded into summer wear, though Sakura had to wonder if it had involved less heat and more of her Father.

“I hadda ask Iruka-sensei! Then I was like all, _Iruka-sensei_ advice please! And he like, was all stern and said like, me now can’t ever be one. ‘Cause he said I’m too impatient. Gotta have the GRRR and patience and gotta listen more instead of just asking for _cool_ stuff.”

He fiddles with the edges of his dark orange shirt. “I thought that, like, me asking for a cooler mission would be like, impatient, you know? Iruka-sensei said that if you wanna build a house you don’t start with shoji. You start a rope to mark out the found-de-tion. You wanna build a _bigggg_ castle, then you need more rope, you know?”

Stopping in front of Daichi’s cafe gate, he scratches his cheek awkwardly. 

“We’re like, fifteen now. Well I’m _fifteen,_ you’re almost fourteen. Bastard’s gotta be like fifteen since he dropped out of the academy for like, a whole year and I failed twice, you know? Iruka-sensei said that I got like, five years more, to show people I got the GRRR and HYAA. Then got like, five years more to prove them right. It’s a _looonnng_ pro-cest. Not like if you become like a hero and suddenly become one. And you said like, Ino-chan already been one since she’s like twelve, then like I gotta work harder—”

Sakura reaches out, pulling his hand off his cheek. “Oh, Naruto-kun. I’m sure you can become one.”

He visibly brightens at her words. “You think?”

“As long as you have the grr and hyaa,” she smirks at him and swings open the metal gate.

“YEA! Gotta have the GRR and HYYAA, YOU KNOW?” He bounds after her, letting the gate swing shut behind him. “BELIEVE IT!”

✥.✥.✥

“We have been assigned a C rank mission. Two weeks long. We are assisting the harvesting, loading and escorting crops from Otofuke-cho. Questions?” Hatake tilts his head at them.

It sounds mostly like the most milk run that Hatake could get for them. Sakura can see from a glance that it’s only classified as a C rank because it’s out of the village - even if it’s only a day away. 

But Naruto is practically vibrating on his spot and to be honest, Sakura isn’t any better. At this point, anything is better than weeding Old Takezawa’s garden or catching Tora.

“No questions. Seven am., here tomorrow. Dismissed.” Hatake holds his hand up in a lazy goodbye and disappears in a poof of smoke.

Sasuke humphs as Sakura expects and slunks off immediately like he’s afraid that she’d cling onto him. Deciding not to disappoint, she plasters a sickly sweet smile on her face.

“Sasukee-kunn!”

Sasuke quickens his steps at her words.

“Sakura-chan! Can you help me with my pack?” Naruto calls out.

“Really? You can’t even do that,” she pouts and lingers back, following Naruto back to his apartment.

“Ne, Sakura-chan, the bet’s over soon, right?” Naruto asks the minute they enter. 

“One week.” Sakura exhales a sigh of relief and pushes a stack of books to make a spot on his crappy couch.

“I can’t wait to see the bastard’s face when that happens!” he whoops as he drags his pack out of the closet.

“Yes, then we can finally work on team signals,” she says and purses her lips. “Your bag looks so sad that it might come apart while carrying stuff…”

Naruto rubs his head with an awkward laugh. 

“Ahh… there’s no helping it. Let’s go!” She stands and heads out of his apartment.

“Wait! Where are we going?”

“Get you a new pack… and probably a new set of everything.” Sakura straightens her spines and smooths out the creases of her qipao, making sure her Haruno crest is prominent. 

“Chichi-ue would be fine fronting you some gear.” She grins at Naruto. “It’s not like he hasn’t bought you new clothes either.

The trip there had been arduously boring with Hatake forcing them to stop and camp for two nights instead of the barely a day’s run at shinobi speed - even at genin speeds.

She couldn’t fault him for it as he walked them through hands-on on setting watch rotations and setting up a camp on “enemy land”.

Better to learn it well within Hi borders than on potentially hostile land, Hatake had patiently repeated to Naruto whenever Naruto seemed to bounce with impatience. 

“Calm down, Naruto-kun,” she sighs. “It’s just a D-rank outside of Konoha. We’re not going to kill baddies or save any princesses.”

Sasuke snorts at her words though he didn’t look up from his smokeless fire pit attempt. 

“I know that!” Naruto says, his body vibrating with excitement. “It’s just—” He bounced up and down from his squatting position that he almost looked like those piston in the Haruno Blacksmith. 

“I wanna be a Hokage, you know? I’m going to need to see ALL the places near Konoha. Didn’t Fuka-san say something about this town recently?”

It’s Fuki, is the first thought that rises unbidden before she bites it back and hesitates at his question. Half from surprise that he had remembered when Fuki told them new information about the important towns and half from the fact that you don’t ever admit that someone is a kunoichi. After all, being a kunoichi is much more than just combat shinobi or Anbu. Their masks are their faces, they can’t change their masks easily after being outed by enemy-nin. 

Luckily before she could decide the proper action to do, Hatake had rapped Naruto on the head with the spine of his book. 

“OW! What was that for Kaka-sensei!” Naruto grumbles, rubbing his head angrily.

“Don’t you know the rule about kunoichis?” Hatake chides. 

“Yes of course! You don’t talk about— Ooo _oohhhhh_ …” Naruto nods vigorously. 

Hatake leans on Naruto. “So what does my cute little genins know about Otofuke-cho?” He points his book at Sasuke. “Sasuke goes first.”

“Otofuke-cho is one of the primary farms for Konoha. Supplying Konoha with daikon and edamame. They are big enough to have an outpost directly near it to provide protection in case of hostiles.”

“Good answer.” Sasuke looks haughtily at Naruto. “But textbook answer,” Hatake continues, seemingly unaware of Sasuke bristling. “Sakura-chan, go.”

She sits up. “Otofuke-cho is one of the primary suppliers for Konoha as well one of the primary suppliers for daikon and edamame for Konoha. They have been growing in size over the last decade, which have resulted in an outpost being built near it during the last war in order to prevent sabotage.

“However in recent years, whether it’s due to rumor mongering or due to the influx of wealth post-war, Otofuke-cho has been unhappy to be under Konoha’s thumb. They believe that they should be in-charge of their own lands - including security, instead of shinobis who know nothing about farming or land. With the decline of Hatake Clan reputation as well as Daizumaru Clan, Otofuke-cho - that is headed by the Otofuke clan has fashioned themselves as minor lords and generally distrust shinobis.” 

Sakura very carefully did not look at Sasuke. Was Hatake deciding that he had enough of the bet? That he wanted her to resume being a proper DI? Or maybe— 

She purses her lips, forcing herself to refocus as Hatake asks for her recommendations. “I would suggest being friendly, not overbearing.” Casting a side glance at Sasuke, she adds, “or the very least neutral.” She isn’t going to bet on Sasuke looking like they owned him their lives. 

Hatake nods. “Let’s follow her recommendation. When we get there, I will be on a different primary mission. So you all will have to learn to work together without me. Naruto, you will be lead for this mission. Followed by Sasuke then Sakura for our next few C-ranks. Questions?”

“Uh— just one?” Naruto says. “What does a lead do?”

“You make sure that everything goes smoothly as the brief dictates. In this case, it’s…?” Hatake gestures.

“Ha-ves-thing, loading and as-courting crops?”

“Yes, but once it’s loaded, you will all wait for me to return before we return to Konoha. Understood?”

“Yes sir!”

Hatake checks their fire pits, giving them advice for improvement before chucking ration bars at them and setting watch rotations. Naruto has the second watch with Sakura following her. She’s thankful for not getting the second watch. When Chichi-ue had brought her out for practical experience, she had the unfortunate experience of getting the second watch. It is the hardest watch to have, roused just as she had fallen asleep and then difficult to fall back to sleep after that. 

Naruto unrolls his sleeping bag next to her. “Sakura,” he hisses at her. “Is there any advice you can give me?” 

She hums, flattening her sleeping bag. “You have a tendency of being overbearing by not fully listening to people talking and take their suggestions into consideration. Even though this is a mission commissioned by Konoha, we want them to like us. Don’t insist and ignore how or what they want to do, even if it seems dumb.” Sakura turns to him with a serious look on her face. “You have to make sure to not have a competition with Sasuke, whether it's doing something faster or better or by words. Like calling each other teme and dobe. Otofuke-cho is a _very_ important village. If you do anything that causes Konoha’s rep to drop, it will affect you chances of becoming a nominee.”

Naruto squares his shoulder, returning her look with an equally serious look. “I understand.”

She turns back to sleeping back, slipping into it. “Though I doubt you can do anything about Sasuke’s scowl. That’s probably a lost cause.”

They reach Otofuke-cho bright and early the next day. Early enough that the sun had barely rose over the forest. Had it been any other village, Sakura would have doubted if the Village Head would be awake at this hour, but it’s a farming village who rises and sleeps with the sun. 

The Village Head - Otofuke Kichiro is a huge man, almost rivalling an Akimichi. He glowers at the sight of them. It is not an auspicious beginning to their mission.

It doesn’t get better.

Sakura had to give Naruto credit. He smiled widely at the villagers glares and like Sakura had suggested, listened to them carefully and followed their instructions. However, it’s Sasuke that surprised her. In spite of the throng of people around them, Sasuke had not flinched or glared at them. Instead he had unobtrusively skirted around them, his face blank and almost neutral. Perhaps she had been too hard on him. 

She turns away from Sasuke, focusing on pulling the daikon out. 

She isn’t wrong. Not when she and six of the other kunoichi saw the way he treated his surviving cousins. 

Tossing her daikons to Naruto’s clone, Sakura chews on her lip. 

Still, his unusual behavior meant that he had heard what she had said to Naruto last night. Father had taught her never to talk behind people’s back. Or at least people who should matter. No, she isn’t going to apologise for it. He deserved the words she had spoken. 

She yanks the daikon out angrily, trying to ignore the tinge of guilt. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes not sure if I mentioned it before, but my characters are aged up. I have long notes on why, I’m not really sure if anyone is interested in it since it’s not going to be relevant to the story (therefore I’ve excluded the reasoning why I did this). 
> 
> There's going to be plenty of worldbuilding going around. Like Hokage nominees, kunoichis, why Sakura _chose_ to be a kunoichi even if it meant that combat isn't her primary duty. A lot of character development too. For team 7, the minor characters, etc. I decided that Kakashi is likely going to be OOC in this fic, because I actually want him to be a good teacher... and... iuno. If that makes him seem like he's OOC, then well *shrug* I'm just going to not care. I honestly think a lot of people are going to be unhappy with me because I'm going to/am changing so many things....


	6. Arguments

Despite the villagers’ blatant dislike for them, the mission goes otherwise as smoothly as it could be. With Naruto and Sasuke both doing their best not to fight with each other, this mission is probably the smoothest and quietest mission she has ever had on with team 7. 

Hatake pops in every evening for a short report on their mission status. Sakura could see that whatever his primary mission is, it wasn’t going like he had hoped it would. Whatever it is, it isn’t her business yet. 

The bet ends anti-climatically. The difference is slight enough that no one else picks up on the fact that she no longer needs to ‘rest’ every hour. It isn’t until she simply heaves the sack of daikon on her shoulder that Naruto halts in his motions. 

“Is it over?” he asks.

“About two days ago.” She drops the sack onto the cart, not even flickering a glance at Sasuke like she had been doing right until the bet ended. 

“So we can talk those thingies now?”

“Maybe when we’re on the road.” Sakura shrugs. In this situation, it’s only appropriate for Hatake to bring it up. She’s not even certain why Hatake had insisted on her doing the bet. All it had done was made their teamwork worse than it could have been and stunted most of their teamwork exercises.

“But Sakuraaa—” Naruto starts in a petulant whine when shouts interrupt him.

They turn, seeing Hatake taking several people down. The ease in his capture makes Sakura wonder if she would ever reach his level. There is a reason why Hatake is so feared even when he’s pretending to be his laconic persona.

He ducks a kick from one of his opponents. 

Why isn’t he using his jutsu? 

Three of his opponents break away, sprinting towards them and grabbing one of the kids that had been watching them. 

“Stay back,” he yells at Hatake, pressing a kunai at the boy’s neck.

Conveniently, or perhaps obtusely, ignoring the rest of team 7. Based on the way the intruder moves, he’s at least a high chuunin. Nothing Hatake would have trouble dealing with if he wasn’t single-handedly taking them down without a single jutsu or weapon and handling fifteen of them at the same time.

She sees Sasuke reach for where his pouch would have been had they not agreed to Kichiro’s rules of not carrying weapons around. 

“Sakura!” Hatake shouts. “The bet’s over!”

That’s right, she jolts. She doesn’t need to hide anymore. She has no katana, but sword skills aren’t all about the blade. Tucking a daikon where her katana would have gone, Sakura takes a deep breath.

_Unwavering._

_Determination._

She slides forward. 

_One with the blade._

She releases her breath. Daikon in hand, fingers clutching its leaves, feet flashing forward. 

_Iaido._

The daikon smashes onto the intruder’s knuckles, breaking the knuckles under its force. The daikon cracks into half as the intruder howls, and she tugs the boy. Feet spinning on the balls of her feet, tucking and rolling away from the intruders.

Sasuke and Naruto leap forward, taking advantage of the opening she made. He kicks the man on the left and swings his other leg in the opposite direction. The man on the left stumbles, hands barely moving up fast enough before Sasuke’s leg knocks him to the ground. With a deft twist of hands, Sasuke is pressing his knees into the man’s back, already wrapping the man in a rope that must have come from one of the sacks.

Naruto, predictably, had summoned two other clones. One sweeping man on the right off his feet, the other kicking him in the head. 

Sakura pushes herself off the ground, double-checking the boy for injuries. The boy turns out to be Kichiro’s eldest son. Small mercies that she had used a daikon instead of her blade. With the boy that close to the man’s knuckles, that would have undoubtedly caused trauma. Sakura could already foresee what that hypothetical trauma might have done for the already tenuous Konoha-Otofuke relationship.

“Anything hurting?” she asks, making sure to project a calm and caring persona. That said, this would be an almost perfect situation to increase the goodwill of Otofuke. 

“Wow! Nee-chan! That was super cool!”

“Ichiro!” Kichiro calls out in a slightly frantic tone.

“Otousan! Did you see that? She was like _HIYAAAA_ and _KONKON_!” Ichiro motions wildly with his hands even as Kichiro hoists him up, patting him down for any injuries.

“Are you hurt?” He asks his son again when Ichiro pauses for a breath.

“Nuh-ah! Nee-chan wrapped me in her arms and we went _gorogoro_ all the way! So fun!”

Kichiro presses his lips together. Sakura could see his reluctance as he bowed towards them. “Thank you for saving my son.”

“Just part of our job,” Sakura says, bowing slightly back.

With that incident, Kichiro and the rest of the villagers eased up their glares. They weren’t giving us smiles, aside from the children, but at least it didn’t feel like they would try to stab her in the back. Considering Kichiro’s calculating looks from time to time, Sakura might even call it a mini-success in developing the Konoha-Otofuke relationship.

Thankfully the rest of the mission goes smoothly. Kichiro has an almost scowl on his face when he stamps their mission scroll. 

“Thank you for your hard work,” he says, handing the scroll over.

“Thank you for your patronage with Konoha,” Sakura says bowing as receives the scroll with both hands and they start making their way back, escorting the horse-drawn carts of daikon and edamame.

Though their mission is completely over until the cart reaches Konoha’s gates, Sakura couldn’t help but wonder who would attack them so close to Konoha. That is even assuming that the stray bandits hadn’t been picked up by patrols.

“Sooo, Kaka-sensei, didja manage to complete your mission?” Naruto asks idly three hours into their trip back to Konoha. 

“Naruto-kun! You don’t ask shinobis that.” Sakura chides from the other side of the cart.

“Wah— _Really?_ ” Groaning, Naruto asks then mutters to himself, “more rules? How many more rules are there?” 

“A higher ranked shinobi would usually have a higher ranked mission. Disclosing any ranked mission above C can cause an information leak,” Sakura explains.

“And disclosing your own strength to your teammates is one too?” Sasuke says snidely. 

Naruto points and laughs. “Hah! Bet you never saw that coming! With Sakura all WHOOSH and POW, you know!”

“You were in on it.” Sasuke glowers at them. “ _All_ of you. Had a good time belittling me, didn’t you?”

“Hey now!” Naruto folds his arms defensively. “Is got nothing to do with me, you know?”

“I’m not the one who insisted the bet be carried through,” Sakura replies defensively. “Not to mention if you paid attention in class, you'd have likely guessed that I’m the team’s DI. So just because I have surprising combat skills, doesn’t mean I’m going to be the team’s combat specialist.”

Finally, she can throw something back in his face. The last month had been sheer torture with his sour face and ‘I-am-better-than-you-in-everything’ attitude. Making her bite back all the words that she wanted to say to Sasuke. How Anko and Genma or even Fuki don their DI mask for months on end is a mystery to her. That’s why Hatake had made her follow the bet through, Sakura supposes. Like he had explained, it _had_ been good practice for practising holding her mask in a safe environment.

“What the hell is a DI anyway?” Sasuke asks. He starts to stalk ahead of the cart, but Kakashi grabs him by the collar, halting him. “Apparently I’m not considered part of the team,” Sasuke grumbles.

“Diplomatic infiltrator, kunoichi,” Sakura answers his question, unable to stop herself from wrinkling her face at him. For someone who hadn’t bothered paying attention to the rest of their class, she’s not even surprised that he isn’t aware of what a DI is. In fact, she wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks that all kunoichi are females. 

_“So what?_ Who cares whatever that is. After all this preaching about teamwork and you all end up snubbing me?” Sasuke turns his face away from them, staring resolutely into the passing greenery.

“That’s rich, coming from you,” Sakura sneers. “I’m not the one—” 

“Rich!? I’m not the one—” Sasuke attempts to leap forward, fist drawn back to punch her, but Hatake loops his arm around Sasuke’s waist, wrestling Sasuke until Sasuke stills.

If looks could kill, then Sakura is certain she would be dead by now. Not that she cares. Sasuke is a brat. If it hadn’t been the Hokage’s orders, none of them kunoichis would have even bothered faking to be fangirls. Admittedly being a fangirl has been one of the long time and ongoing jokes for graduating kunoichis, but none of them would have picked Sasuke as their so-called idol willingly. 

“Now, now. Children.” Hatake sighs, slowly loosening his grip on Sasuke when he’s certain that Sasuke had calmed down. “First of all. Impromptu lesson. Kunoichi have a very important in teams and in Konoha. Who do you think controls information flow? Kunoichis are the eyes, ears and mouth for the Hokage. They control rumours as their primary weaponry. Every team has at least _one_ kunoichi. So that they can bring back updates on situations, just like our mission. Things might have gotten very differently had Sakura not advised us, right?”

Hatake gives them an even look.

“Oh yea! Totally, Kaka-sensei! Imagine if we didn’t know…” Naruto pauses and glances at the farmhand on the cart seat several metres ahead of them. “... _you know!_ ”

Sasuke humphs but doesn’t try to throw another fit, so Sakura thinks it’s a win of some form.

“We’re far enough that he can’t hear us, but I have used a privacy jutsu earlier anyway,” Hatake ruffles Naruto hair with an eye crinkle.

“It still doesn’t change the fact that you all have been snubbing me,” Sasuke says tersely. “Or was I never part of this team.”

“Sasuke.” Hatake sets a hand on his shoulder. “Do you even consider yourself part of the team?”

“What?”

“Are you bringing up about ‘never being part of this team’ because you realise feel left out or is it because you assumed you knew everything and suddenly is shown that you actually don’t?”

“What does this even have anything to do with me being part of team seven?” Sasuke tries to pull himself away, but Sakura could see Hatake holding him down.

“Uchiha Sasuke, we talked about this. I’ve talked to you about expanding your role in team seven many times more than I have fingers.”

“Why should I care about something stupid like first aid?! It’s not like dobe even knows it!” 

Naruto shuffles. “Uh… I do?” He pulls out a small first aid kit from his pouch. “Iruka-sensei it was super important that all teammates know basic first aid. Gotta patch them up good enough to bring them home, you know?”

Sasuke grinds his teeth. 

“And Naruto also has other team skills. Naruto is taking sensory lessons from me to aid in detection on missions. What team skills have you learnt, Sasuke? I know your shinobi specialism advisor has given you pamphlets. Did you read any of the brochures?”

It’s a long moment before Sasuke swallows dryly. “No.”

“Even I have talked to you at length about the classes you can take to fix this. Did you at least go back and think about it?”

Sasuke looks down, hands fisting on his side. “No,” he replies hoarsely.

“It’s been more than a month, Sasuke. You ask if you are even part of team seven, are you? Do you want to be? Because honestly, it doesn’t look like it.”

“I… do.”

“So why didn’t you? And be honest, Sasuke.” Hatake sets his hand on Sasuke’s back. 

“They… the team skills… they wouldn’t help me kill _that man_ and I wasn’t going to get discharged for not going to it. So… so...”

“That’s so like you to not care about anyone but yourself. Why am I not surprised—” Sakura says.

“Sakura,” Hatake cuts her words, but Sakura ploughs on anyway with the words that she had been swallowing the entire time when she had been his ‘fangirl’. 

“You even snub your living cousins and don’t even deny that _Uchiha._ ” She points a finger at Sasuke as he opens his mouth. “We’ve _seen_ the way you tugged your sleeves and shirts from their hands and pretended not to see them. The surviving little Uchiha kids, barely five, seeking your comfort and you just turned around like they didn’t matter. And now you’re bothered that we might have been snubbing _you?_ What? Did you think you’re special or something? Mister, I-am-an-Uchiha—”

“They don’t even have sharingan!” Sasuke yells. “How are they going to protect themselves from _that man_ if he knew they existed!? The only thing I could do to protect them was to pretend that I’m the only survivor until I got strong enough to protect all of them! You think I liked it any better than you!? You don’t know anything! You— you— _bitch_!”

Naruto gasps audibly. 

“Well, that was an unexpected explanation. An explanation that made perfect sense in a weird, twisted sense.” 

“ _Twisted?”_ Sasuke hissed. “How is it twisted?!”

“I mean…” Sakura fakes an enlightened look. “So that’s why you are like that.”

Sasuke wouldn’t have the information the kunoichis had received after the massacre. It made sense now that she saw it from his point of view. His decisions, after all, had been made with limited information, in the only way he could. It hadn’t been any of their class kunoichi to make the call since it had been and still is far beyond their ranks. She couldn’t tell him exactly why the massacre happened. 

“Take a deep breath, both of you,” Hatake says calmly, thankfully interrupting before Sasuke could press her for more answers that she isn’t allowed to give. “Deep breaths, Sasuke.”

Sakura forces herself to follow Hatake instructions, letting the rush of blood calm and settle. 

Perhaps, had they, the kunoichi class had been able to ask him questions, they wouldn’t have been so biased against him all this time. His explanation, the circumstances and situation would have been explainable had they known. But of course, they hadn’t and Sasuke hadn’t been approachable anyway. All they had seen was Sasuke push the young kids away and later insinuate himself that he was the last Uchiha, and thought that anyone who would treat kids that young that way wasn’t worth their respect.

Hatake clears his throat loudly. “Now that the argument is over… the point I had been trying to drive in when _I_ ordered Sakura-chan to continue on with the bet, was that you get stuck in your own point of view and no matter who tried to advise you, you kept thinking that you know better.” He pauses and looks at Sasuke. “This, Sasuke-kun, is one of your most critical faults. The only way to get your attention had been to shock you from it.”

Hatake sighs. “I’m not going to sugarcoat things for you. So I’ll only tell you this and give you the week to think about your decision. No matter which team you’re going to transfer to, you will find that you will be ordered to work on your team skills. Konoha prides herself on training teamwork. Unless you can find a mentor that would accept you as their apprentice, this isn’t going to change. And _if_ you do, being an apprentice doesn’t mean some sudden elevation to more training or more… _power._ Anyone who tells you otherwise either has some ulterior motive or is lying.”

Hatake squeezes Sasuke’s shoulder. “Either way, take your time and decide whether you want to work with us or ask for a transfer—”

“I—” Sakura catches the flicker of hesitation on Sasuke’s face. So faint and fast that she would have thought she imagined it had Sasuke not lifted his head, continuing his words in a hesitant tone. “I…would like to stay.”

Sakura blinks, surprised at his words. For a person who had shown how much he didn’t like Naruto and her the entire time, she had been certain that he would have taken the opportunity to find a mentor or at least another team. 

“Are you sure?” Hatake asks.

Sasuke glances at her and nods. Somehow Sakura is partially convinced that some of that choice to stay had been the fact that she could actually fight. Ah, the conversation where she tells him that their class kunoichis had been pretending to his fangirls is probably not going to go well. 

Hatake hums. “We’re glad to have you stay with us, Sasuke-kun.”

“But, Kaka-sensei did you see Sakura-chan? Sakura was so _awesome_. With that daikon! And POW and their fingers were broken,” Naruto chirps, so eager that Sakura thinks he’s trying to dispel the tension. “Didn’t think anyone could break someone’s finger with a daikon!”

“Reminds me of that mission where I was dressed as a female oiran kimono and found myself attacked by Kumo-nin,” Hatake says.

“You fought them with a daikon too?” Naruto looks at Hatake with stars in his eyes.

“No. A kiseru and a carrot.”

“A carrot? Why a carrot?” Sasuke mutters.

“Why not your hairpins?” Sakura asks. Wouldn’t an oiran have plenty of hairpins to fight with? Using hairpins to fight had been one of the tests in the kunoichi course.

Hatake laughs awkwardly. “I lost them.” 

“You lost them?! How?” Naruto gasps.

“Ah…” Hatake pulls out his Icha Icha. “That’s another story for when you’re 18! Now chop chop. We’re supposed to be escorting the crops, not talking.”

“Aww! Kaka-sensei!”

“I hear someone wants to run laps around Konoha when we get back?”

“No sir!” They quickly move back to their positions, pretending to look studiously over the landscape as the cart slowly trudges down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I updated! So shocking! The argument had been one of the most painful things to write. Once again, I'd like to remind readers that this fic is in Sakura's pov and therefore there are plenty of other stuff going on without her knowing. Which means, you know, that you readers don't know either. I hope this explains some stuff about Sasuke and what not. And also casts some questions/answers on why ALL the fangirls in their year were Sasuke fangirls. *cough*
> 
> As for the truth on the massacre and what not, that'd be slowly revealed over. 
> 
> I'm sorry for being a slow writer. Orz


End file.
